


a thousand eyes, and none

by lyannas (crossfirehurricane)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Magic, Sex Magic, possibly even
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 23:47:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20054536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossfirehurricane/pseuds/lyannas
Summary: Not even Lord Bloodraven truly knew Shiera Seastar-- and she took pride in that.





	a thousand eyes, and none

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Adadzio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adadzio/gifts).

> aaaaand my second gift for argelladurrandon on tumblr, AKA Bri. Ily!!

Shiera sipped at her wine as she mulled over the entrails before her. There were shapes in it that seemed to insist it was a favorable outcome; the way the rabbit’s innard bent before her implied as much. But there were other things more unclear— the bird’s black eye, somehow mixed in with all this gore, and the corner of a fox’s liver that seemed to tease her, slyly hiding some secret.

She left the table to search for a tome that may help her. Brynden had been so good as to move her whole library to this manse, fearful that they were at risk in the castle. But in truth, Shiera did not enjoy the move. She liked it better at court, where she saw much and learned much, where there were no shortage of horses and eager young men to ride. Things were freer at court, but Brynden saw only dangers. The last sorceress at court had her heart cut out, after all.

“There it is,” she whispered to herself in triumph, her fingers having found the spine of the book she sought. The title was High Valyrian, but in common tongue it was read as: _ Signs _. Such a simple title, with rather complicated content. As she opened it, the spine cracked from disuse; she hadn’t needed help in a long time.

“Fox liver, fox liver…” she whispered to herself.

“I’ve had it before. It’s chewy.” The voice needed no introduction. She smiled at its slyness, but did not look up from her book.

“I do not plan to eat it, unless it will reveal its secrets to me if I do,” she returned. She looked up from the book to look into Brynden’s face. His eye was darkened with some trouble that he had carried from his day at court. Shiera chuckled. “Was the king horrible today?”

“Horrible?” He scoffed. “He hardly knows how to be anything. Aerys might be more feeble than Baelor the Blessed, but at least Baelor had the excuse of piety.” He began to shrug off his black doublet while his eye looked around for something. Most likely to drink, or eat, but he was unbothered by the mess of entrails on her table. Used to it, she supposed.

“Has he fucked his wife yet, at the very least?” She asked, still thumbing through her book. Her search turned up no answers, yet.

“No,” he answered. “I’m beginning to think I should sneak a knight into her bed and get Aerys drunk enough to think he finally put it inside her.”

Shiera chuckled. “I can help with that, I think.”

“It would be a waste of your talents.” He draped the doublet over the back of a chair and neared her.

“Oh, but those draughts of vigor I make for the men of your court are not?” She smiled as he wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her to him.

“Men fear you most when you have their cocks at their command,” he answered, unsmiling. “Though if ever you wish to stop making them, I will stop delivering. It would be amusing to hear them cry to me that not even the most talented whore could make them hard.”

“That is an unkind thing to call me,” she teased. His grip tightened.

“Of course I don’t mean you.” He leaned down to kiss her, but Shiera slid out of her grasp, as slippery as an eel.

“My work is not done,” she chided him. “Have some of the wine until then.”

He did not complain. Instead he slumped in the chair that wore his doublet and poured himself a glass of her wine.

Oh, the court feared him of course, but that was not her work. Brynden had a way to make people want to crawl out of their skins, for he knew every secret that was ever written upon them. It was not magic, at least not completely. He had little birds in every corner of the kingdom, even the most uninteresting ones. She has heard the portent little adage herself: how many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? A thousand eyes, and one.

_ But no eyes here, _ she reminded herself. Her servants did not answer to him about her comings and goings. It was not for lack of trying on Brynden’s part, for she knew he wanted so desperately to know every part of her, but a sorceress would never be so dull witted as to forget to silence those who waited upon them. A little mixture of foxglove and violet and a few dark words, mixed into their wine cask, made their memory where it concerned her rather poor. She had tried the potency of her magic herself.

“Who do you serve?” She asked them.

“Lord Bloodraven,” they answered.

“Who do you wait upon?”

“Lady…” The struggle was clear on their faces like the wine that stained their lips. “Lady Shiera.”

“And what did she do today?”

“Sleep, and eat, and took a trip to the market.”

She did none of those things, but for Brynden, it was enough.

She cast her gaze upon the table again, finding that little black bird’s eye. _ Where did you come from? _ She asked it, before picking it up off the table. It was springy and swollen between her fingers, freshly extracted.

“Did you misplace this, Brynden?” She asked her half-brother, who looked at what she held and scoffed.

“I would thank you to leave the ravens alone,” he said, dour.

Raven? Yes, this was a raven’s eye, she realized. She smiled at it.

“It is the ravens that don’t leave me alone,” she said, and set the eye back down. Brynden’s gaze turned suspicious, before he gave up quickly. He was coming to terms that he could not control her, she thinks. She was a stronger sorcerer than him, and what she could not see, she could feel, and that was something Brynden often forgot to do.

They were like children at opposite ends of a rope, pulling one way, then another. There were so few equals in Brynden’s company that she knew that she presented an exciting sort of challenge. This had only been exacerbated by Aegor’s disappearance to the Wall, for the only man he could consider his bitter rival was gone, but she was no more clear to him than before.

She padded over to him, her feet shuffling on the stone floors, before she settled in his lap. His eye lit up, excited, and he cautiously settled a hand upon her waist.

“I fear the entrails are speaking of a horrible fate for you,” she said, though it was a lie. She did not know what they said, not completely, but it was more like an auspicious omen than an awful one.

“I’ve long since known that,” he answered. She pushed back the hair from his face, reminding herself to cut it for him on the morrow.

“It is so hard to be you,” she said with a mocking smile. He frowned for extra pity, and slid her robe down her shoulder.

“Very,” he answered, just before taking a nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She wondered idly what his eye had seen for tonight, her riding him, or him riding her, or if he left this up to mystery, or if that was not information he could summon at all. The truth was that he was a mystery to her as much as she was one to him. It is why she could never marry him; with marriage he might know her, and that simply would not do.

_ I like this dark cloud between us, my love, _ she thought to herself as she unlaced his trousers. _ So many secrets between us, and so many ways to read them. _

He lifted her by the waist and unceremoniously tossed her upon her bed. The kisses her pressed down her belly were burning, and burnt the best as he buried his face between her thighs. She curled a hand in his silver hair and sighed.

_ You are blind now,_ _ but I see, _she mused to herself. _ A fox liver in a sea of rabbits— you will overstep, my love. _

She could not help that. So she closed her eyes and smiled, making her grip a little tighter.


End file.
